


Tips for Raising Tiny Meatsacks

by PhenixFleur



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: All these kids are named after pine tree species btw, But mostly fluff, Child OCs, Fluff, Getting in fights on the playground, It can't be easy living with one big demon and three smaller demons, M/M, Parent AU, Poor Dipper, parenting, prompts, with just a little angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-12
Updated: 2015-11-12
Packaged: 2018-05-01 06:50:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5196302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PhenixFleur/pseuds/PhenixFleur
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A peaceful day at the park with the kids turns into a standoff between an angry mother and a pissed off dream demon then rapidly goes downhill from there. Alternately, both Bill and Dipper deal with the issues arising from raising children that aren't entirely human.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tips for Raising Tiny Meatsacks

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the following prompt from @otpprompts on Tumblr: "Imagine person A having to hold person B back from fighting another angry parent at the playground."
> 
> Since this is a longer Parent AU entry I decided to just post it as a regular fic. Follows the events of Saplings, which I haven't finished because I'm a hack. The child OCs (only Torrey thus far) have been used before in some of the drabbles in Dippin' Dots, and I have a handful of headcanons regarding them under the 'parent au' tag on my Tumblr. And yes - all of three of them are named after various species of pine tree, with two being specific to the area. I'm lame. :D

It had all started rather innocently, as did many of the misadventures that had come to define his life: as a pleasant family outing to the local park to allow Torrey to burn off some steam, running wild with a group of other small children shrieking at the top of their lungs and violently abusing the playground equipment while their parents looked on in awe. It was the kind of lowkey, domestic activity that Dipper found himself craving sometimes. It wasn’t easy to be married to and live with a dream demon while raising three half-dream demon children that displayed various magical abilities at random. It often lead to parts of the house being on fire, or territory spats with other supernatural creatures stalking the woods around the dilapidated tourist trap they called home. So when he actually got the chance to do something  _normal_  with his family he jumped at the opportunity.

It was  _nice_ , for once; Torrey amused herself in the sandbox with two other children that appeared to be the same age, and he and Bill sat on a nearby bench with a twin in both of their laps, burbling to each other animatedly as if they were actually holding a conversation. As far as he knew, they might have been.

It took less than ten minutes for things to spiral out of control yet again.

Admittedly ten minutes was a good five minutes longer than it normally took for things to go to hell, but  _still_. The catalyst took the form of an older child pushing Torrey out of the sandbox while laughing at his ability to torment a little girl that was at least two years younger than himself. What the bully in question probably wasn’t expecting was for Torrey to leap to her feet, eyes flashing golden with rage, and punch the kid right in the face with her tiny five-year old fist while yelling something in that cryptic language that she and her sisters shared with their other parent. Dipper suspected it was one of those demonic incantations he’d told Bill to stop teaching her a couple of years back.

Despite the older child being in the wrong, a waspish woman in bright red yoga pants that must have been his mother had stormed over and yanked her squalling kid away, daring to yell at Torrey for giving him what he very likely deserved. Suddenly Dipper found himself holding both Sugar and Sandy while their father rose from the bench in a blaze of fury and rushed over to seize Torrey, holding her under an arm effortlessly while telling the woman where to go and what to do when she got there.

Dipper  _really_  wanted to press his palm to his face in a universal expression of weariness, but it was difficult to do so while holding two babies at the same time. “Damn it, Bill,” he muttered to himself; Sandy shot him a severe Look that should have been beyond her cognitive ability. 

Sugar just laughed. 

Sandy was less likely to roll off the bench, so he laid her next to him gently while strapping Sugar into the harness and sliding her onto his back then grabbed the other infant and made his way over to where the red-faced harpy was now shrieking back at Bill in a voice that suggested that she might not be completely human either.

“That brat of yours needs to learn to keep her hands to herself!”

“Then tell your  _juicy lump_  of a miniature flesh creature to keep his grubby hands off mine,” the demon hissed in response; Torrey dangled patiently beneath his arm, watching the situation unfold with a perfectly placid expression on her face. A better look at her eyes confirmed that she wasn’t being completely passive - her irises had narrowed into slits, and she was staring at the other child entirely too intently to not be messing with his head somehow. This was the problem with having a family full of fairly powerful supernatural beings. A simple playground spat rapidly devolved into a magical throwdown with little forewarning.

“How dare you!” The older child’s mother screeched, raising her hand to make a horrible mistake that would probably result in her losing it.

It was then that Dipper pushed his way between the two, halting the woman in her tracks with the same Look Sandy had given him in response to his accidental epithet. “Lady, I really wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

“Pine Tree…” Bill growled behind him; Dipper rolled his eyes, turning to deposit Sandy onto the arm not holding Torrey at bay.

“We’ll talk about it in the car,” he replied, smoothly. Something about his tone seemed to dowse the flames stoking the demon’s rage almost instantly, and while he didn’t back down the “But” that passed Bill’s lips held a lot less ire than it had only seconds before.

“In the car,” Dipper stated, with a note of finality. He turned back to the bristling mother, who’d also deflated to some extent, probably out of confusion. “By the way, you probably  _should_  tell your juicy miniature flesh creature to stop being a bully,” he informed her in a cold tone.

The woman opened her mouth to begin yelling once more…only to be interrupted by the soft  _pitter patter_  of her son losing control of his bladder and dampening the sand beneath his feet. Torrey’s mischievous laughter rang out as her irises returned to normal, and this time Dipper had both hands free to facepalm with and did so.

The other children in the sandbox scattered, a couple of parents ran to yank their children away from the point of contamination, the woman’s son burst into tears, and his mother started to berate him for not telling her he had to ‘go’. Dipper almost felt sorry for the kid as he, Bill, Torrey and the twins made an utterly undignified exit amidst the chaos, but then he recalled the boy pushing Torrey onto the ground and decided that the little shit really had deserved it.

The car ride back to the Mystery Shack was surprisingly quiet. Sugar and Sandy seemed to understand that their dad and sister were in trouble and kept the volume of their babbling to a minimum. Torrey sat between their car seats, small brown arms folded over her chest while she fumed silently in an almost exact replica of her father’s stance. Dipper couldn’t tell which one of them looked more childish; the actual five-year old or the powerful being acting like one.

Dipper ignored everyone, focusing on driving. It wasn’t as if he wasn’t supportive of the older child facing some retaliation. What worried him was the form it took. Whatever Torrey had been chanting hadn’t reached completion, thankfully, interrupted by the arrival of the other child’s mother. Dipper shuddered at the thought of what the results might have been. Certainly worse than causing the kid to wet himself (and the sandbox). Torrey, Sandy and Sugar weren’t entirely human, but the world they lived in expected them to be. The thought of any of the girls finding themselves in trouble for letting their abilities run wild without mediation weighed pretty heavily on his mind - as did the thought of losing his life with Bill.

Upon pulling onto the lawn, Dipper removed Sandy from her car seat and moved it aside to free Torrey from her prison. The five-year old stared up at him unhappily. “Do I have to go to my room?”

Dipper nodded.

Torrey sighed, beginning to levitate before remembering that she wasn’t allowed to do so when she was in trouble and trudging off on foot.

Dipper popped Sandy back into the car seat then returned to sit next to Bill, who eyed him sullenly. “Do I have to go to my room too?”

Dipper sighed. “We’ve gotta talk.”

* * *

 

Dinner that night was a subdued affair, with a silent, contemplative Dipper, a silent, sullen Bill, and an equally sullen Torrey that continued to be a carbon copy of her father. It didn’t help that it was Stan’s turn to cook on the schedule, resulting in something only marginally edible that may or may not have had a few gray hairs in it. Ford, who possessed a good bit of patience beyond that of his twin brother, wasn’t a bad cook;  the contrast between the two had spoiled Dipper over time during his other grand uncle’s visits from wherever he strayed, and every time he came across a piece of gristle in his burger he felt a greater appreciation for Ford’s occasional presence in his life. 

Stan also picked up on the tension, glancing back and forth between the two of them with no little amount of anxiety. Sometimes arguments between Dipper and Bill resulted in damage to the house, and he was beginning to grow tired of accessing the cost of repairs while they ignored the hole in the kitchen wall or scorch mark on porch in favor of making up with each other. When the opportunity to escape presented itself in the form of Torrey wanting help with running water for a bubble bath he took it, disappearing off into the Mystery Shack with his great grandniece in tow. 

That left Dipper with the twins and Bill, one of which was fussy and irritated - and it wasn’t either of the infants who watched them with interest from their high chairs. 

“So…we should probably do that talking thing I mentioned earlier,” Dipper commented, casually. 

“Then talk,” came the flat response. 

Dipper sighed. He should’ve known this would end up being difficult. “Come on.”

Sugar and Sandy were nowhere near being tired enough to sleep, so Dipper handed the former over to Bill and collected the remaining twin himself before heading out to the porch. Over the years, and with the increase of permanent residents of the Mystery Shack, the number of chairs had increased, alongside the addition of a porch swing that took several attempts on Soos’s behalf to actually stay aloft. It was here that Dipper seated himself, and Bill beside him, with the babies quietly conversing with each other and the symphony of crickets serenading them. Unfortunately it was too early for fireflies.

“So?” Bill asked, testily; Dipper rolled his eyes at the show of petulance. 

“Torrey’s  _five_ , Bill. You’re not five.” As if perfectly predicting his spouse’s rebuttal to that statement, he added, rather firmly, “You’re not five in dream demon years, either.”

“You have no sense of humor, Pine Tree.”

“And you can’t go around threatening other parents on the playground and letting Torrey lash out like that,” Dipper snapped; the words had already left his mouth before he remembered he was holding Sandy in his lap, and he felt a twinge of guilt as the baby flinched at the tone of his voice. 

Bill’s face fell; he looked legitimately hurt, no deception required. “Why are you taking her side? You saw what her spawn did.”

“I’m not…” Dipper started, then sighed again. “I’m not taking her side. I’m glad Torrey fought back. Maybe that kid’ll think twice about bullying anyone else from now on.”

“Then what are you pissed off about?” All traces of humor were gone from the demon’s voice, and Sugar sensed his change in demeanor, running her tiny hands over his arm in a reassuring manner. 

“…what was she saying earlier? Before she was interrupted?”

As expected, he didn’t have to clarify what he was referring to. Bill paled a bit, then looked away. “…you don’t need to know.”

“I kinda do,” Dipper deadpanned. “She’s my daughter too.”

Bill continued to avoid eye contact, only looking back at Dipper when he reached over to place a hand on his shoulder. “Look. I know all this stuff is just a part of who you are, and I’m okay with it. I always have been. But  _they’re_  partially human and they can’t learn to solve every problem by setting it on fire or they’ll never be able to live normal lives.” He paused for a minute. “At least as normal as they can get around here.”

Two sets of golden eyes stared at him intently, one sparkling with curiosity and the other scrutinizing. 

“I don’t want to lose them,” Dipper whispered. “Or you. Or any of this.”

The admission struck a chord with Bill, who finally sighed himself, uncoiling from the tight knot of anger he’d been all day long. “She  _may_  have been attempting to summon a sand wraith.”

These words made little sense to Dipper. “A what?”

Bill shrugged. “For the record, I didn’t teach her that. She was doing it incorrectly anyway, so she would have ended up with only  _half_ of a sand wraith."

"What’s a sand wraith??" 

Bill shook his head, chuckling to himself. Apparently he didn’t intend to give any further explanation, following his last statement up with words that were a balm to Dipper’s apprehension. "I’ll start working with her so she learns to use her power responsibly. You happy?”

Despite his tone it was clear to Dipper that the demon was being sincere - and that he’d taken his confession to heart. Dipper smiled as the knot in his own stomach loosened. “Thanks.”

“Eh,” Bill scoffed. “You’re just lucky I like you, kid.”

Sugar and Sandy looked at each other, satisfied with the results of the conversation, and began to coo at each other again contentedly. It was definitely time for the two of them to be in their cribs, willfully refusing to doze off and give their parents some peace at last, but Dipper decided a few more minutes on the swing couldn’t hurt. There was still something nagging at him, though, and his curiosity refused to let him go without indulging it. “What did she say to do to that kid to make him react like that?”

Bill’s eyes glittered in the growing darkness. “She telepathically told him the exact date and time of his death.”

Dipper’s mouth dropped open. 

“… I think we’re going to have to find another park.”


End file.
